The State of the Swankivy - July 18

swankivy

The State of the Swankivy - July 18 - July 24

Jul 26, 2020 15:50

The week in review:

Saturday I went over my mom's for the first time in a while (for an actual visit and not a favor), courtesy of our yard maintenance person Tony. She was getting her house painted by her neighbors and it looks really nice! I hung out with my mom for a while and brought her biscuits. Then because she has a weird sleep schedule she fell asleep for a while so I did some household tasks for her--folded her laundry, emptied and filled the dishwasher, etc. When she woke up I talked to her while dusting some crap in her room. She took me home and I did my walking and showering and watched some funny videos Meghan suggested.
Sunday was the usual chores, got my laundry done and table cleaned and trash taken out. Did my karaoke, took some walks, observed the pothole turning into a big open road hazard. Vehicles kept driving into it and making a terrific racket outside and damaging the street more. I played Dance Dance Revolution and made a curry for dinner. At night the cops showed up and started guarding the pothole, and finally another truck arrived and put a barricade finally. Whew! But now people are driving into my yard to get around it and running my grass down. Great.
Monday I was supposed to go to the office to prepare a proposal but my boss postponed it one more day. Did several letter edits and took walks. I wanted to take a bike ride but my bike chain fell off. Rargh. The City came to paint around the pothole, I guess to mark it for whatever repairs it needs. I ate leftover curry and argued with someone on the Internet about transphobia.
Tuesday I did end up finally going to the office and it was a hectic day. I shot off some arguments on the Internet before I went in (my boss picked me up), still arguing with one girl about transphobia and another person about whether they'd misremembered literal, easily checked objective facts. I didn't look at my phone all day to continue the arguments because I figured I'd get too distracted at work and wouldn't be able to complete my tasks, but getting irritated at the arguments probably building up made me annoyed all day. I had a VERY long day that day but got all my work done and my boss took me home. I was super hungry so I ate a veggie dog AND a veggie burger when I got home. Then I looked at the arguments online. The fact-denying person had deleted the entire argument (I guess he finally did check the facts and was embarrassed to be wrong?) and the transphobic person had been banned from the group (for transphobia). So the arguments were won without me even having to win them. :] I chatted to Meghan and did some dance game again, and I used a cool avocado mask for relaxation. And my friend Victor somehow ended up in the hospital after getting trapped in a bush (??).
Wednesday work was nice and slow after the rush. I had to edit a scope. I kept trying to take walks but the rain was interrupting me so I put on music and walked around inside pretending it was an outside walk. Jeaux came in the evening and we grocery-shopped, watched Owl House and Colbert, and cooked ourselves a really great stir-fry! He also fixed my bike. He's great.
Thursday I had to get up early for a training session that took up half the day. Then I worked on editing and compiling components of a proposal we're submitting for a local city. Victor got released from the hospital and called me later that evening but he was really tired and not holding a conversation so I told him to go get more rest. I drew some comics and watched weird videos.
Friday was a busy day! I spent a bunch of time drawing comics and taking walks, and I did an experiment photographing my food (three meals, three snacks). Then it turned out I had agreed to move my podcast recording with Daria to Friday and didn't even remember agreeing to it, so I wasn't prepared and wasn't finished with the comic in time to do it. We postponed the start time a few hours and I was able to do it but I ended up talking to her until 4 AM and boy was I exhausted.

Social media counts:
YouTube subscribers: 5,293 for swankivy (4 new), 675 for JulieSondra (1 new), 16 for v & V Vids (no change), 99 for Not-So-Giant Women (no change). Twitter followers: 950 for swankivy (lost 2), 1,360 for JulieSondra (lost 1). Facebook: 297 friends (no change) for swankivy, 635 likes for JulieSondra (lost 1), 62 likes for Negative One (no change), 158 likes for So You Write (no change), 83 likes for Not-So-Giant-Women (no change). Tumblr followers: 2,482 (1 new). Instagram followers: 202 (lost 1).

Food Plan Update:

Still on the plan I joined three weeks ago. I've remained committed to both the eating guidelines and the exercise guidelines, introducing some more intense activity this week. My main problem seems to be that even though I'm undereating based on my plan recommendation, I'm sometimes going over on the foods in the "limit your consumption" category. AND it might not actually be happening because some of the categories seem inconsistent (example: I'm recommended to eat brown rice instead of white; I buy brown rice; I scan the package into my log and it still says it's in the worst category even though my coach says that shouldn't happen). It's done this for my multi-grain cereal, my hummus, my vegetable protein--not just for foods I'm expecting to get flagged for like cheese, oil, and butter. And one time it said my mushrooms were ice cream. So I'm pretty sure I can't take the app's food database as gospel!

It's frustrating though because I have made a HUGE change in my activity level and a PRETTY BIG change in how I'm eating, and at the end of three weeks I'm still seeing no movement on the scale. At least it isn't going up? But I can't shake the idea that this is very weird. I don't really do "diets" but for the people I know who have, they usually experience the most weight loss at the beginning (if they stick to the program), so when I'm over here meeting or greatly exceeding the recommendations in EVERY category, it's discouraging to see very little evidence that it is working.

The good news is that I feel really good. The movement I'm working back into my life is a big game-changer and I like that feeling of good tiredness. I haven't felt different hunger-wise. I am feeling like I don't have a good balance yet, though--that I'm devoting a lot of time to making sure I meet these requirements (especially the exercise) and am having trouble keeping up to date with other obligations. I hope I find the balance soon.

(I am only down one pound from when I started.)

Books Read: